On Second Chances
by VervainAndRoses
Summary: Stefan, Elena and their little girl were the perfect family until the marriage fell apart. Now with someone conspiring behind their backs, will they be able to overcome their differences and find their way back to each other? AU
1. Chapter 1

This was just another one of those nights. When she's alone at the big, cold house, with too much time on her hands. The house was eerily quiet, the only sound being the wind softly blowing trough the trees outside, and the TV blasting re-runs of CSI that resonate throughout the house. She couldn't believe that at 27 years old she was already one of those women who turn on the TV just to feel less lonely. She should just get over it and buy 6 cats, really. She usually immerses herself in work at these occasions, but her boss didn't have anything for her to do this weekend. _"You're my best reporter, Elena! Catch a break, kid. You deserve it!"_ had been his exact words.

She huffs in annoyance and wraps the blanket tighter against herself, deciding to go upstairs and sleep. It was barely 7:00 pm but she couldn't stand to be awake with nothing to do. She considers leaving the TV on, but decides against it, it would be too pathetic. She slowly walks up the stairs, and when she passes her daughter's room, she has to come in and turn off the light. She told Stefan every time he came to pick her up to turn it off_, God, it wasn't that hard._

She looks around the room, Kaytlin's bed is painfully empty, and she knows she agreed that their daughter would stay with Stefan on weekends, but she still misses her like crazy. Specially her little feet stomping on the hardwood floors at 6:00 am, entering her room to wake her up. She hasn't found out yet, how does the 3 year old manage to always wake up earlier than her to run to their _her_ room).

Waking up alone, or namely without Stefan is something she (convinces herself) she has gotten used to by now. It's been a little over 4 months since they separated, and even when she wants to deny it, she misses him. He had been her best friend, her partner, her love. Elena thinks her psychiatrist would agree that she had the right to grieve over their relationship. But it was over now, even if none of them wanted to be the first to send the divorce papers; they couldn't even talk to each other properly, except for things related to Kaytlin, the only thing left between them anymore. She's trying to forget him, but it isn't easy when she sees him in Katie's big green eyes and the way her straight light brown hair curled at the ends.

_Stefan_

She had broken her own heart by leaving him, but she really thought it was the right thing to do. The fighting, the screaming, wanting to connect with someone but not finding the words to…It was not good for her, it was not good for Kaytlin and she was the most important thing. Her little Katy cried every time her parents got into a brawl, they would scream and slam doors and it scared her so bad. It wasn't a healthy environment for a child to grow up into.

So after one of their fights (about money or his secretary or her job, she doesn't quite remember) she just threw some clothes for her and some for Kaytlin in a bag, picked up the sleepy child and still in their pajamas, drove an hour to her parent's house, where she stayed for 2 days until Lexi called her saying that Stefan had moved out and she could come back.

Leaving, it wasn't easy. The look on her Stefan's face when she came down holding the bag destroyed her, but she simply could not keep living like this. He tried to stop her; he pulled the bag out her arms and begged her to stop and just talk to him but that's something they didn't know how to do anymore. So she walked away.

Those 2 days at her parent's house weren't easy either. She drove to the house she grew up in, and woke them up in the middle of the night holding her daughter to her chest, tears streaking her face. Her dad didn't ask any questions, just picked up Kaytlin from her arms and took her upstairs, while her mom simply embraced her and told her everything was going to be fine. That night she slept in her little brother's room, one hand on her daughters back, reassuring herself that yeah, everything was going to be fine.

But the next day, while Grayson took his granddaughter out for ice cream, she cried her eyes out in her mom's lap while she tenderly stroked her hair. She doesn't know when everything started going downhill, when they stopped supporting each other's decisions and started questioning them, when he started cheating on her. When everything she felt for who she thought was the love of her life turned into anger and hate.

This is exactly why Elena hates free nights; it's time that she stupidly uses to think about everything that went wrong.

* * *

Stefan watched as the lively little girl on the chair next to his finished an entire bowl of spaghetti Bolognese. She wanted to see TV but he made them eat at the table, she's returning with her mom tomorrow and he wants to spend this time actually talking to her, and also, apparently, cleaning her dribbling chin from the spaghetti sauce.

"You want dessert?" After everything he's seen her eat today, she can't possibly want something else.

"Yes!" Kaytlin answered while continuing to move everything she saw at the table to a different place, Stefan really could not understand how she was so energetic after being at the zoo for most of the day. He felt so tired he was about ready to drop dead.

"All right, some ice cream for my princess then" He told her turning around to pick up another bowl and a spoon.

"I'm your princess, daddy?" inquired Kaytlin, looking up at him with her pretty eyes as he put a clean bowl in front of her.

"Of course you are, sweetie." She was the center of his world; he would do anything for his daughter.

"And mommy is your queen?" she asks again smiling up at him, not noticing how the question made him choke up a little. He couldn't resist her face full of hope so he just answers "yes" and drops a kiss on her forehead before turning around to search for the ice-cream and sadly whispering "She was."

* * *

**N/A: So that's that. Tell me what you think! **


	2. Chapter 2

It was early in the morning; as Stefan drove through the foggy streets of the city, heading for his house. Well, Elena and Kaytlin's house now. The little girl was asleep on the back seat, still wearing the same pink, bunny-motive pajamas he put her to bed last night, after she had incredible quantities of food.

The question she made him then still traveled through his mind, constricting his throat. Yeah, Elena was his queen. He loved her more than anything else in the world. She was everything to him, and then their baby had been born. Kaytlin. He remembers he cried the first time he held her. When he looked down and saw this beautiful, bright-eyed baby; part of Elena and part of him. That was when his life started revolving around two people, not just one. His girls.

Everything was perfect, it was.

oOo

Elena finished blow-drying her hair, she wanted to at least be kind-of ready for when Sefan would bring Kaytlin over. The Salvatore's were holding a barbeque, and she and Kaytlin of course would be assisting. She didn't mind, Mrs. Salvatore –Rosa- was nothing but nice to her. Even after she and Stefan (unofficially, since he hasn't returned the papers yet) broke things off.

She took care of Kaytlin every time she could, still sent her lasagna every other Friday and (according to Lexi) once hit Stefan with a rolled newspaper and reprimanded him after he said he was tired of his wife. (She remembers that day, she chased him out after a particularly bad fight about the bar he liked, and he ran to his mom).

Point being, Rosa Salvatore was a lovely woman, and she surprisingly didn't take sides. Elena thinks maybe Rosa believes that she and Stefan are equally guilty, and sometimes she wonders if that's true.

oOo

He got to the house 20 minutes later, Kaytlin having woken up in the middle of the trip. Elena came out to greet them, and he couldn't help but think that she looked breathtaking, as always. Her waist length hair flowed behind her and the dress accentuated her slim waist, his eyes trailed down her mile long legs. He is taken off his reveries by the sound of Kaytlin's voice

"Mommy… pretty." She says, still sleepy, from the backseat.

"She is." He answers her and she nods her head, agreeing.

"Come on, we need to get you dressed." He walks out of the car and opens the back door to get her. Elena beats him to it though, and then they're walking towards the house the little girl in her arms chatting away about monkeys.

"I take it you went to the zoo." Elena tells him, looking back.

"Yeah, she had a great time. Tried to pet the lions." He sees Elena eyes widen in her signature "are you serious?" look, and he can help but chuckle.

"Cmon, sweetie, lets go take a bath." She tells Kaytlin, and starts up the stairs. "Oh, and Stefan, there are some pancakes in the kitchen if you're hungry." She adds, and then disappears in the direction of the bathroom.

Stefan knows the only reason she knows how to make pancakes is because he taught her to.

He rubs his face and tries to clear his head. Why couldn't things be simple like that again? How come they had to stop living under the same roof? He tried to hate her once, he did. But every time he thought about her all he felt was an overwhelming sadness, and anger, there was a lot of that too.

He plops down on the couch and tips his head back, maybe he can get a bit more sleep until Elena and Kaytlin are ready. Sitting there, it's like visiting an old friend. This couch was his home for a month before he left, like his bunker in the middle of a war zone. Stefan loves this couch.

oOo

When he wakes up from his little nap, he turns his head to the right, and finds something. So the couch betrayed him, too. A tie, and obviously not his. He grabs it and once again thinks, no, is now sure, that Elena has found someone else. He hears her walking down the stairs and deposits the offending item where he found it, and quickly turns around to see his baby girl running towards him, in a pretty green dress and piggy tails.

"Hi there sweetie" he says, picking her up. "You look very pretty." I'll have to fend off the boys with a bat when she grows up, he's about to tell Elena, but then wonders if there will be someone else to do that for him. Another man to live in his house and for his daughter to call daddy. He feels red hot rage at the mere thought of someone else enjoying the warmth of their, no, _her_ bed.

"You may want to get that back to Matt." Elena says and he looks up to find, she's nodding to the tie. _What? "_We had a movie night last night, and he forgot that." Well, thank God. Movie nights, well he doesn't get invited to those anymore. Probably everyone was here, since their living room was usually a pro-mundi-benefici site, meaning everyone with a key just made themselves home. Aka Caroline and Lexi, Bonnie was more reserved (and less crazy than the blondes.) It's not fair for everyone to use the tv except for him, that bought it in the first place.

"He'll be at the barbeque, just take it yourself." He answered her, a little more harshly than intended, and got up with Kaytlin walking towards the car.

"No need to be rude, what values are you teaching our daughter?" Elena protested, following suit.

"I don't want to fight right now." He told her, handing Katy to Elena and getting into the driver's seat.

"Well, you started." She told him, putting Katy in her car seat and tying the seatbelt.

"And with no reason, may I add." She said, getting into the passengers seat and slamming the door.

"No reason? Apparently everyone can come over to _my_ house, except me. What did you tell me last time? Something about calling the cops…"

"You're angry that your friends were having a movie night without you? Seriously, just grow up Stefan!" she exclaimed, annoyed.

"It's not that, is that you seem to think it's your domains, well it's my house, Elena! I've got as much right as you to be there. And I bought the TV!"

"Why don't we talk about what's really bothering you? I saw you grab that tie; you thought it belonged to someone else didn't you? What is it to you if it had?! You don't-"

"I don't' give a damn who you screw around with." He said and Elena winced at the harsh words. "But you're still married to me, you want to talk about values?"

"That doesn't mean anything anymore, and you damn well know it! We're-"

"It's my house, and my daughter is there! What can you say about that, huh? There's nothing-"

"It's not just your house, I bought it with you! And your daughter is in the back seat but that isn't stopping you from telling lies and-"

"No more!" Kaytlin screamed, "No more no more no more no more!" she kept yelling, followed by high pitched, ear-splitting screams.

"Katy…" Elena undid her seatbelt to reach out for her daughter. "Its ok baby, I'm sorry. Kaytlin!" But she wouldn't calm down.

"Stop the car." She told Stefan, and he pulled over so she could climb in the back seat. She undid Kaytlin's car seat and pulled her to her lap, rocking her. "Hey…hey….its ok….c'mon…" She gradually calmed down, and Elena wiped the tears that had started falling down her cheeks. She held the infant to herself and comfortingly patted her back. Katy started sucking her thumb and Elena didn't have the heart to tell her not to, like she usually did.

She looked up into the rearview mirror, and her eyes met Stefan's. They exchanged a look, and as tears tracks dried in their daughter's face, the same question was in both of their minds.

_What are we doing?_

* * *

**A/N: Sorry for the incredibly long wait. Please review and let me know what you think?**


End file.
